Otousan
by Vesper et Nox
Summary: The stars. The always faded, jumped out of his clawing reach. Just like his memories. A familybased hurtcomfort fic. with Kiba as our hero. Summary sucks, story's much better! Read and tell me if ya' like it!


Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, you think this would exist?

This is the first fic. I've posted on fanfiction, flame if it floats your boat. Constructive criticism always welcome. Basically, Kiba's trying to remember the dad he never knew. Read to find out what happens, hope you like it!

God Bless!

-Youma

Swaying. Dancing. Breathing.

The wind pushed air deep into his lungs.

Darkening. Twinkling. Living.

The stars seemed to taunt him in the night sky, just out of his reach as he tried to clasp a hand over them.

Painful, painful memories. Or a lack of memories there of.

His face cracked into a sad smile, his eyes howled to the sky and barked viciously at the moon.

The red fangs splashed across his face were surrounded by a corona of puffy pink,

his dark hair was matted with salty water.

"Wow, I never thought I'd miss someone I never knew..."

He sighed. His fist collapsed back down onto the moist, grassy hillside. Empty, as always.

The Konoha-ninband reflected the dim light of the crescent moon, the stars washed out his deeply tanned skin and turned his dark fishnet shirt to gray, his gray jacket left hanging on some tree some ways up the hill turned white.

His nose sniffed, his canines clenched together and he shook his head, laughing softly.

"Otousan... did you really have to leave?"

He asked the sky, resting his head against the hillside, body splayed out on the late-night cooling grass.

Silence.

The Inuzuka boy slowly closed his eyes and pursed his lips in thought. Had to clear his mind. Moping over a dead person never solved anything. "Demo... I miss you... I wish I could've known you more than mom's and Hana-chan's stories."

"I know you do."

His dark eyes flung open, his breath came in a sudden gasp and a certain pack-worth of dog scents filled his nostrils. He jerked from his vulnerable position, sitting up to protect his stomach. Instinct. Instinct of a Shinobi.

"Oi, Hana!"

His voice instantly cracked.

Oh, the joys of being thirteen years old.

The older girl's voice split into it's own bell-like laugh.

The howls of several dogs joining in the chorus of her alto-voice.

The childish yip of a certain white and brown patched pup that had just about as many 'voice' problems as himself.

"Geez, where were you daydreaming off to you didn't even catch _Akamaru's_ scent, much less _mine_?" Hana asked, her gloved fists planted on her hips and her vibrant smile flashing in the dim light as the Haimaru brothers circled her then dropped a certain gray jacket in her hand.

"Ah, just thinking..."

Kiba grumbled back, ever so disgruntled that he had failed to catch his eighteen year old sibling before she was about ready to slice his throat if she were an enemy. But she wasn't. She was something much worse.

"About what?"

She prepared to sit, sliding down the wet grass and falling into a comfortable position, ruffling her younger brother's hair in the process.

"Kotonashi! Oi, back off!" Kiba snapped, trying with no avail to swipe her arm away, only to have Akamaru tackle him into distraction. Hana laughed as the pure force of the small pup forced his owner back onto the hard ground, Kiba's yowl ringing in her keen ears as his head hit the dirt below.

She chuckled softly, whistling to the Haimaru brothers a playful tune.

Their wolfish ears pricked, their long, sloping muscles whisked from her to the younger Inuzuka, then their lips curled into large, menacing grins.

She was his sister. His _elder _sister to top it all off. That was worse than any enemy.

"H-Hey! Hana! Get these mutts offa' me!"

Kiba howled as three wolfish figures surrounded him and Akamaru, who had only started the laughing fit. Haimaru's took care of the rest, pouncing at once.

"Heh... hee... haha! Hana!"

Kiba's voice rang, but to no avail. The thirteen year old Genin was covered in an ocean of fur, wet saliva splashing against every piece of uncovered skin. Especially his face.

Hana's laugh again rang out. There was something about that laugh that urged the Haimaru's to continue their mission with new excitement, their long pink tongues sloshing across his face.

"Get _off!_"

He tried not to laugh. That didn't work. He tried to wipe the slobber off his face. That didn't happen either. He tried not to cry. That was working for the most part since the dogs were licking the salty tears from his face.

"Oi, Hai-maru! Give Nii-san a break!"

Hana's voice sounded far off. The dogs retreated. Kiba's fit of laughter slowly died into slow moans and chuckles as he wiped the tears away, using the excuse of dog slobber to do so. He couldn't look weak in front of his older sister. Even under the facade of laughter.

Silence.

That was strange.

Even Akamaru was quiet. He rubbed his eyes with his bare fists, before looking around to find the Haimaru's had retreated, Akamaru was at Hana's side... and Hana was giving him a long, sad, look.

He quickly looked away.

She sighed. Heavily. Almost as if the world was slowly creaking onto her shoulders.

Almost as if another burden had been added to her Chuunin-Vet-elder-sister-Inuzuka clan member status.

He flinched.

"You know, Kiba..."

She began softly. She never began a sentence softly.

"You shouldn't look back on it."

"I..." Kiba felt grief well in his chest. He forced it down, hugging his knees to his chest and placing his chin on said knee-caps. His eyes flicked across the hillside, looking down on Konoha lit up like any other city, the Inuzuka estate hanging aloof above the Shinobi city. "I don't know what you're talking about."

His voice cracked again.

He flinched again.

'_Traitor'_ He thought, wishing, praying that the teenage stages would end soon.

"Hai, gomen for worrying about my little Nii-san."

Hana replied almost snidely, resting her elbows on her knees and letting her dark eyes search his face, his posture, anything that would let her know he got the point.

His shoulders heaved.

That wasn't a good sign.

He sniffed and shook his head a few long moments later, and Akamaru's whine followed soon after.

That was even worse.

"Geez...why'd he have to leave?"

Hana's eyes widened slowly, her lips pursed together as she searched for a response.

Nothing came to mind.

She bit her lip, racking her mind for something, anything, before an image flashed in her head.

_His_image.

She looked back at her younger brother and smirked.

"You know, you look exactly like him."

"Yeah, right, Hana... quit trying."

Kiba grumbled, forcing himself to give her a cold gaze.

"You do! I gotta' say, you act like him to... stubborn little gaki."

Her feeble attempt at mood-lightening failed miserably as Kiba shook his head.

"So? That doesn't give him any reason to leave us. I never got to know him!"

Oi, this was definitely not a subject she could avoid was it?

"I guess it's good you never did."

"Huh?"

Kiba looked up, his eyes widening as he glanced back at his sister, seeing her own chocolate colored eyes gaze far into the distance, beyond the city lights and noises of Konoha.

"You were just a toddler when he left. Otousan always used to hold you, any chance he could... it's almost as if he knew he was going to die soon."

"Doesn't every shinobi?"

"...Ah, Touche..."

Hana barely caught a shadow of a smile return to her normally over-active and cocky brother's face before it quickly diminished.

He sniffed again, and quickly rubbed his face before any tears could achieve dominance.

His eyes were overcast, his short hair sticking up in every which way and stiffened with salt water.

He tried, tried hard to remember the mans face. Prayed that he could see his father's face, and remember it... so he could at least keep it in his mind forever rather than not know who fathered him the first years of his life.

"I... I wish Kami... Kami-sama would at least show him to me... so I could remember him... who he is..."

"We've got pictures..."

"It's not the same!"

He looked up, eyes bright with tears he fought desperately to hold back.

"It's not fair you grew to know dad! You knew him, you remember him! All I know is that I had a dad! That's it! Nothing else!"

He burst, snarling back at the eighteen year old Kunoichi, gritting his teeth and face red hot with anger, frustration and grief.

"Hey, Kiba..."

Hana tried to quiet him.

"It's not fair for either of us. Sure, I remember him. But I also remember his death. You ever look at it that way?"

It was hard showing love to her brother when he was like this. The emotional roller coaster the boy became sometimes reminded her he had at least seven more years of the experience as a teenager.

_**Joy.**_

She made sure the sarcastic remark didn't reach her lips, noting the boy's eyes growing suddenly empty.

"But... Demo..."

He choked, lost for words more than lost for control.

"I guess I never looked at it that way."

He begrudgingly confessed, turning back away from her and returning to his closed off, curled up position.

"But... I do wish I knew him."

"Just be glad you knew what he was. He was a great Otousan, we know that."

Hana smirked slightly, looking back on the days Kiba could barely walk, and his five years older sister was constantly egging him on to do so before her father would sweep the toddler into his arms and shake his finger at her, only for a playful grin to spread across his face as he cradled Kiba on his hip and ruffled her hair playfully. Almost the same way she ruffled Kiba's now. He was never one to discipline his children. That was always Tsume's job.

"...I miss him..."

Kiba sniffed. Hana looked up and smirked back at him, hugging her knees to her chest.

His eyes were still kind of watery...

"Hey, you know... rule number twenty five..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. 'A shinobi must never reveal emotion'..."

He grumbled, forcing a weak grin onto his face. "...But I still wish I knew him..."

Hana smirked slightly and lifted a hand to ruffle her younger brother's already bedhead-styled hair yet again, but he drew back before she could this time. Her hand dropped back to the ground, she was shaking her head and returning to her former position, gazing up at the untainted night sky.

"I still miss him to, Kiba."

The peaceful stars seemed to grin down on them.

Kiba smirked sadly as they did so, the sweet aroma of Konoha filling his lungs and sinking deep into the memoirs of his life, to take it away for remembrance for another day.

'_Kami-sama...'_

He thought silently.

"Hey, Kiba? You smell that?"

He sniffed the air, only to flinch at their mother's harsher scent.

"Gaki! If I find you wrecking the practice field, I swear I'll have your heads mounted over the doorway!" Tsume was screaming. It sounded like she had been screaming more than just that sentence.

"..." Both siblings glanced at each other in mock horror at their mother's statement.

"C'mon... before mom catches us."

Hana leaped to her feet, Kiba following, and the two siblings, the Haimaru brothers, and Akamaru dashed across the hill to escape their mother's wrath.

'_I know I can't have Otousan back...'_

He thought, laughing loudly as he chased his sister and the Haimarus, rushing for safety around to the front of the large training ground/kennel/raising pound estate.

'_But thanks for Hana.'_

He grinned through the wind, Akamaru barking at his heels as he suddenly rushed past Hana with a final burst of speed and darted over the corner of the manor and grinning over his shoulder.

'_I couldn't have a better sister... Arigatou...'_

He turned, then jerked to a stop, his thoughts suddenly frozen.

"Oi, Kiba, you get back here! I'm not taking the blame for your running off and-"

Hana froze just behind him.

Akamaru yipped in horror.

The Haimaru brothers backed towards the corner of the estate yet again.

Inuzuka Tsume was standing stiff and raging, her eyes flashing, her teeth grit and her arms crossed firmly over her chest.

"Where do you think _you're _going?"

She snarled and the brothers quickly stopped.

Her eyes never left Kiba and Hana, however, as she tapped her arm in slow, boiling rage.

"Uh...heh?"

Kiba gave her a failed, lopsided grin, Hana rubbing the back of her head in minor embarrassment and major 'horror'

'_But it would be nice if I got a better mom... onegai?'_


End file.
